<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- generator="WordPress/2.9.2" -->
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>Game Design Ideas</title>
	<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com</link>
	<description>Game Design, Artificial Intelligence, Complex Systems</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:05:20 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Oil Well Operator Ultra Light &#8211; Free for Download!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I finally managed to put the oil well operator program up for download. I decided to leave out a few features I added, and make an early "lite" version available for download to all of you. The program, as it is, is easy to use (if you know how to operate a well that is ;) ), and I'd love to hear your comments and criticism. The software, as it is, is neither the complete version, nor has been upgraded to a new graphics engine in a long time, and the little bit of sound in there is horrible (I am sorry for that, but I really didn't have access to voice actors/studios). ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/serious-games/oil-well-operator-free-for-download.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>&#8220;Hello World&#8221; Program with Genetic Algorithms</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In this article, I will discuss a simple "Hello World" application set up to run in Excel/VBA with Genetic Algorithms. The program tries to "Breed" strings that match you chosen string phonetically.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/ai-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/hello-world-program-with-genetic-algorithms.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Excel List of 101 &#8220;Emotioneering&#8221; Techniques</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some time ago I gathered all of David Freeman's techniques from the excellent book Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering. Most of the techniques in the book are aimed at creating and guiding the emotions of players, and deepening the narrative experience of games. The book is a must-read for any game designer and writer, and the following list, though useful, does not do the beautiful samples of writing and illustration of the book justice. Nevertheless, I believe the list will give you a handy reference to check against your own stories and dialog.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/summary-of-emotioneering-techniques.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Book Review: Emergence in Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Book Review: "Emergence in Games"
Author: Penny Sweetser
Publisher: Charles River Media
ISBN 10: 1-58450551-6
Companion Site: http://www.emergenceingames.com/
My Rating: 6/10 (Interesting)
Summary: This book is a compendium of information on methods of increasing interactivity in your games, and even though it does not deliver on the promise of developing methodologies to design for emergence in games or offer analyses of complex dynamic game systems, it does a good job of introducing the reader to the field, especially if you are willing to read all the reference material introduced in the book.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/book-review-emergence-in-games.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Towards Human-Like AI in Video Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Whenever I watch Starwars movies, I have this nagging feeling that R2D2 might just be more intelligent that C3PO, a fact that everyone else seemed not to agree with! The way I see it, it is R2D2 who normally gets everyone out of trouble, and it is him who provides the more practical solutions to most problem. Why then is it that we are encouraged to think of C3PO as the more intelligent robot? Is it merely his exterior humanoid shell, as opposed to the embryonic egg-like shape of his beeping brother? Or is it the fact that he makes such a show of his emotions all the time? And what is "intelligence" anyways? Do C3PO's angst attacks qualify as intelligence?

O....K! I almost opened a can of worms there, but I do want to make a point- that problem solving and adapting to new situations (R2D2) are probably a big part of any definition of intelligence…while depression and angst (C3PO), while indicative of some sort of internal world-view simulation, don’t necessarily constitute intelligent behavior. Despite this fact, I argue that creating a semblance of the latter in your NPCs, i.e. simulating a C3PO-like behavior, makes for a more believable AI than does simulating R2D2-like AI.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/towards-human-like-ai-in-video-games.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>A Fresh Look at the Concept of Immersion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[These days “Immersion” seems to be the big buzz-word for marketing departments. Marketing, being hype driven as it is, tends to stick that “immersive gameplay” label on every single game retail box, console and demo video they release. On a deeper level, everyone in game development seems to agree that “immersion” is an important achievement, if not the ultimate goal of playing games: immersion makes players feel passionately about a game and crave for more of the same.

Unfortunately, many game designers have failed to analyze the constituents of immersion, and have treated the concept as if it were magical – impervious to analysis! In this article, I will try to explore what immersive gameplay is, and how the state of immersion can be created.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/a-fresh-look-at-the-concept-of-immersion.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Defining Emergence and Complexity in Video Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In this article I will discuss the concepts of complexity and emergence citing Dwarf Fortress and other games as examples, and try to give two definitions of complexity both in game play (discovered by the player) and in the game systems themselves (embedded by the developers).]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/gameplay-game-mechanics/defining-emergence-and-complexity-in-video-games.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Perfect Game – Limbo</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Sooooo...What does “Avatar” have to do with what I would like to call “the perfect game” and what is "Limbo"? 

Well,...just as the avatar machine technology allows Jake Sully to delve into an alternate reality, where he is stronger and faster, and able to walk, and experience a “new” world, to the point where it changes him, the perfect video game could, and should change how you see the world by allowing you to experience the results (long- and short-term) of your actions, and by enabling you to show, and share your emotions with other inhabitants of the “game world”, which I will call “Limbo”. In this article, I have tried to describe how such an alternate world should look and feel like, and how it can be realized without “avatar-level” technologies! ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/the-perfect-game-%e2%80%93-limbo.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Designing for Emergence in Video Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In this article, I will borrow concepts from the field of cellular automata and by studying the correspondence between CAs and video games, I am hoping to draw on the accumulated knowledge about CAs and apply it to the less formalized field of computer game design. The reason why I chose CAs as the source of comparison is the fact that they are probably the simplest constructs capable of clearly displaying emergent behavior (besides some sets of differential equations, but those are not as intuitive).]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/designing-for-emergence-in-video-games.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Monster Developers…and How They Took the Fun Out of Games!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Major publishers and developers keep churning out game after game, without any innovation in gameplay or content, and, though we gamers keep paying them our hard-earned cash, we keep wondering how many innovative and revolutionary ideas had to be sacrificed on the altar of the so-called “market-oriented design”. There must have been a large number [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.gamedesignideas.com/video-games/monster-developers%e2%80%a6and-how-they-took-the-fun-out-of-games.html</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>
